THE DRILL SERGEANT: White Rock Minerals has received assays from recent drilling at the Lady Hampden silver prospect on the company’s 100%‐owned Mt Carrington project in northern New South Wales.

Mt Carrington contains an overall shallow Inferred Resource of 190,000 ounces of gold and ten million ounces of silver.

Lady Hampden is located on the Cheviot Hills fault zone near the eastern margin of the central mining Leases at Mt Carrington.

An Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.07 million tonnes at 59 grams per tonne silver for 2.03 million ounces and 0.8 grams per tonne gold for 28,000 ounces is located immediately beneath and adjacent to the Lady Hampden open pit, which was mined in the late 1980’s.

In an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange White Rock said the current drilling results provide strong support for potential growth of the Resource.

The company carried out an eight‐hole drilling program to test interpreted extensions to the Lady Hampden Inferred Resource in July.

Four of the drillholes completed in that program intersected shallow silver and gold mineralisation, which the company is confident has confirmed significant extensions to the known mineralised zones.

“The silver assay results in this program are among the highest and most consistent we have seen from Lady Hampden,” White Rock Minerals managing director Geoffrey Lowe said in the announcement.

“We now have a number of confirmed mineralised extensions down dip and adjacent to the current Inferred Resource, which underpin our confidence and our capacity to expand this Resource.”

The company is expecting to receive results for the final two holes of the July drilling program at Lady Hampden by the end of August.

While it has scheduled further drilling to commence in at this time, other drilling is currently underway to test for new mineralised zones additional to the eight million ounce silver Inferred Resource at the White Rock prospect.

Drilling of potential extensions to the Strauss and Kylo gold Resources are expected to be completed in September and October.

OUT AND ABOUT: Diggers & Dealers marquee players Ramelius Resources has told the Australian Securities Exchange that its profit for the full financial year ending 30 June 2011 is expected to be much higher than what achieved in the previous financial period.

Ramelius said it expects its un-audited consolidated total profit before Income Tax for the year to be approximately $90 million.

This is a substantially higher number, compared the a consolidated total profit the company earned, before Income Tax, the year before of $28.7 million.

“The expected pre‐tax profit is based on gross gold sales revenue of $147.6 million arising from gold production in excess of 100,000 ounces milled during the year from the company’s 100 per cent-owned Wattle Dam underground gold mine located in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia,” Ramelius said in its announcement.

The company said the increase in profitability was driven by increased production from Wattle Dam and improved Australian dollar gold prices.

Ramelius Managing Director, Ian Gordon, said,

“This exceptional result is a reflection of the quality of the Wattle Dam orebody which has not only delivered excellent grades but is also likely to be mined well into the future as we continue to delineate extensions to the resource at depth,” Ramelius Resources managing director Ian Gordon said.

In the release Ramelius pointed out that this profit guidance is only approximate and is based on internal draft management accounts.

The final result is still subject to the completion of the company’s 2010‐11 financial report and audit.

OUT AND ABOUT: Delegates who have lasted all three days of the Diggers & Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie were treated to a lesson on the proposed Minerals Resource Rent Tax.

The lesson was given by Fortescue Metals Group, soon to be, chairman Andrew Forrest.

“If I’m leaving you with any impression that we have a government who either understands the mining industry, or supports it, then I have done a really bad job,” Forrest told the conference.

Before launching into his assessment of the tax, Forrest made the point that it actually provides his company with a $12 billion tax deduction.

Forrest has often been portrayed as being anti-tax simply because he doesn’t want to pay more.

The theme to emerge from his address, however, was more that the question should be asked as to why the “big three” major players in BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata will end up paying less tax than the smaller end of town and why they were the only ones present when such a cosy deal was negotiated.

“We’re, in fact alright, Jack. We’re in the lifeboat,” he said.

“We don’t have the hundreds of billions of dollars of tax deductions, which would be available in shelter to the big three but we’re looking good.

Forrest implied the three majors that negotiated on behalf of the mining industry over the terms of the MRRT basically walked out of the room holding ‘Get out of Jail Free’ cards.
 
“The tax was negotiated in secret. What is so bad about this tax, that it must be kept secret?” he asked.

“How is it then that the juniors and the developers will pay the MRRT full rate of 45%, the highest tax rates in the world?

“In the government’s own numbers, the majors flat line in their tax, how is that possibly fair?”

He said what emerged from these negotiations was the idea that if you are a big company you will receive a tax shelter but a tax liability if you’re a small player.

“That goes right across the grain of everything the Labor Party stands for,” Forrest said.

“When the union officials and the leadership work out that the big three got a get out of jail free card – that it let them off that tax and it hammers the developers, the little guys trying to have a go, that the union movement stands for, how can they front members and say, ‘we think this is a good tax’?”

“How can they support Treasurer Wayne Swan when he refuses to answer how much tax the majors will pay because he knows he gave them the get out of free card?”

Forrest challenged Treasurer Wayne Swan’s public proclamation that the majors will be paying most of the tax.

“That’s not correct,” Forrest said.

“If the majors pay much at all it will be by accident.

“It is an inefficient tax that will discourage production across the industry, except for the one per cent.”

Forrest said he anticipated the reports in tomorrow’s papers to be quoting the government saying there would be no way that it would spread the tax across the rest of the resources sector to take in other commodities besides the iron ore and coal it already targets.

“No way, we will spread it across the resources sector,” Forrest said mimicking Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

“We will not tax gold and lithium and everything else. Only coal and iron ore.

“Yeah right Julia, no Carbon Tax.”

The driving force behind Forrest’s address seemed to be simple that the MRRT, as it currently stands, creates a scenario of unfairness across the resources sector.

His fears extend to the ability of smaller companies to not only get their projects up to the point of development and production but whether, in the future, they will be able to obtain acreage to explore in the first place.

“We now have a very tilted playing field,” he said.

“You have the most profitable paying very little of the new tax, while the least profitable will be paying it all.”

The Digger Award for 2011 was presented to gold and base metals-focused Independence Group.

The Digger Award is presented to companies that have achieved corporate success through strong management demonstrating innovation and sustainability.

The Chris Bonwick led entity has developed a stable of mines in the Kambalda region, including the Long nickel mine.

It has also developed a strong presence in the gold sector through its Joint Venture with AngloGold Ashanti at Tropicana.

“They have maximised returns and enhanced the sustainable value of the primary nickel business as well as maintaining skin in the game through the 30 per cent equity interest in the major Tropicana gold project,” conference chairman Barry Eldridge said presenting the award.

“Independence Group have rightly earned a place as one of the premium resource companies operating in Australia,”

 

 

This award recognises the positive contribution by an individual, or company, to the development of the resources sector.

This year it was presented to George Jones.

“George Jones has had a remarkable career and we are all well aware of the exceptional leadership that George showed last year after the air crash tragedy that took  the lives of the directors and a large portion of the management team of Sundance Resources,” conference chairman Barry Eldridge said.

Eldridge also made mention of Jones’ community work including fund raising for The Ear Science Institute Australia and Parkerville Children and Youth Centre.

Jones was also recognised for these efforts in other realms throughout the year having received the Western Australia Citizen of the Year Award as well as being made a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.